Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Ok, so I'm a day late . . . and as always, probably a dollar short. Life is crazy, and not because of Christmas. The husband and I SOLD OUR HOUSE!! and to make an extremely long, stressful, tearful and depressing story short - we've been moving and packing and almost forgot Christmas altogether. Yea.

But I did do a few fun "festive" things this year and I thought I'd share those with you Instagram-style!

I painted my nails red then used the Sand Paper nails technique - this time with RED embossing glitter.

My niece and I made a snowman garland. I cut out the snowman bodies and hats, and I also drew on the coal and carrot, but she glued on the hats and added the lovely scarves. She had so much fun with this one!

That same night, we made reindeer cookies! I found a post on Pinterest, of course, and thought it was the perfect baking project for a 3 year old! We made peanut butter cookies (plus pretzels and M&Ms).

And Sugar Cookies with frosting! We used a heart shaped cookie cutter for the head, I was pretty proud of that idea!

And on Christmas Eve all the family got together and I called in a special favor from a good friend to come surprise my niece.

The best part was when we all asked her if she'd been a good girl this year, and she replied "no." (HA!) She was a little afraid of Santa, but he brought her Candy Land and since she said thank you, he promised to return that night and give her more presents!

Above all the stress of moving out of our house around the holidays, we've learned a big lesson. It doesn't matter where you are on Christmas, it matters whom you're with. And we are thankful to have a great family and group of friends supporting us and loving us.

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas! Here's to an even better 2013!

Monday, December 3, 2012

I really like coffee.Nope. That was a lie. I LOVE coffee. I mean coffee keeps my body functioning daily. Okay that last one was a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. So, when presented with a new way to drink my life fuel, I listen. I am part of She Speaks, an online community powered by women who love to get the latest scoop and share what's hot. She Speaks gives you many ways to have a say, share and inspire others. One of the perks of being part of this great business is getting to try products (full sized stuff, y'all!) and give my opinion on them. I've tried shampoos and conditioners, panty liners, face washes and the latest... Torani syrup. Did I mention they send full sized products? Not sample size. FULL SIZE.

Imagine my delight when I got a box in the mail a couple weeks ago, opened it and found two... TWO full sized Torani syrups inside! I received Gingerbread and Sugar Free Salted Caramel.A big ole thank you to SheSpeaks and Torani for these great flavors!

The bottles came with a recipe booklet full of tasty looking concoctions and yes, coupons. I, of course, gravitated toward the coffee drinks like lattes and steamers and such. And since I'm super fancy and complicated (ba ha!) I brewed up a cup of black coffee and poured in some gingerbread syrup. Yea, just coffee and syrup. It was... yummy!

I haven't tried all of the recipes yet, but I have discovered a new favorite.

A drink that doesn't contain coffee at all. GASP!

I love making a steamer with the salted caramel syrup and warm milk (heated up in the microwave). It is fantastic! And since the salted caramel syrup I received is sugar free, the drink isn't crazy bad for you, depending on what type of milk you drink.

So head over to SheSpeaks.com and check it out! And if you're a friend of mine, come on over and help me use these delicious syrups!

Happy SheSpeaking!

*This is a sponsored post for Torani and SheSpeaks.com. I received Torani’s syrups in exchange for my review. All opinions and thoughts are all mine.